Kill the Rally Conference CallFor your entertainment, I have edited the following fictional conference call between the manipulators that I taped last night. The manipulators have only been identified as M1, M2, M3, etc to conceal their identity. M1 is the lead manipulator and organized the call. M1 is from Big Pharma. The others Ms are institutional investments who manage mutual funds, pension funds, and hedge funds.
M1: “Welcome all, that &#%% Gemini upset the apple cart last Friday by pointing out that the current stock price does not support a realistic market valuation for Oncolytics. If this rally continues and drives the stock to a realistic level, it will ruin our plan. How do we kill the rally, gentlemen and lady?”
M3: “What does Gemini hope to achieve? At the $3 level, he had the opportunity to buy the stock on the cheap?”
M8: “Don’t be naïve M3, he is a retail investor. He needs margin to buy more stock. He has spent his bullet on ONC. I bet we burnt him five times this year as we drove minor rallies back below $3 and trapped him in a margin call.”
M5: “Serves him right. You would think getting burnt and losing money would teach him a lesson.”
Laughter all around
M3: “He says his objective is to defend his investment and is telling retail investors that they are being scammed by selling at an unrealistic valuation.”
M5: “Bull, he’s a pumper. We have dealt with them in the past. The problem that we have this time is that he has linked the stock price to the market cap valuation. All we have to do to kill the rally is execute our standard moves to manage the stock price. Retail investors are dumb chumps. We will need to post blogs to websites. We need to distract them away from Gemini’s rants. Let him rant about market cap. We have been on the Board longer and retail investors know us. We can talk about other things.”
M8: “M5, do you really that we can push the stock price below $3 by only using the Discussion Board? I think that we have to do more than post. We need to sell stock into the market to stall the rally. We can continue to put up larger blocks on the ask side to create the impression that people want out at this high rally price. Obviously, we will need to stop buying so the bid side is weak. Alternatively, we can start selling blocks between our funds to create the impression that institutional investors think the current price is justified.”
M1: “I like it. M8 and others, do you think that we can move the stock price back to under $3.00?”
M8: “I think that it will be easy to stall the rally. Oncolytics is a small obscure Canadian company. The retail investors who know about it are mostly in it or have been discouraged to sell out. The unknown is the retail investors’ appetite to buy on margin? The volume of margin buying could surprise us. Once the rally is stalled, we can try to push back to $3.00. At worst, we concede Gemini some ground and coordinate our trading to maintain a price above $3.00.”
M3: “I am not comfortable at managing the price to a fixed point above $3.00. I do not want to be caught in a plan where there is obvious collusion.”
M1: “Grow up M3. We all know the chances of getting caught are next to nothing. Regulatory protection for the retail investor is zilch. We need you to be a team player.”
M3: “OK.”
M1: “I want every one to be aware and willing to move quickly in the event that we can not stop this rally. Gemini has set some investor’s sights at a market cap above $1 billion. I was planning on acquiring Oncolytics for less than a half that with your help. Based on our combined holdings, it would have taken only take a few retail investors to approve a takeover at $6.00 a share. If the rally is not stopped and the stock price continues to gain momentum, I may be forced to launch a take over bid.”
M8: “A premature takeover bid may be a good thing for me. My fund performance this year reflects the economy, awful. It could use a pop from the takeover premium and I also hold a large position in Big Pharma which will also gain on the transaction. Being a first quartile performer will be a feather in my cap during these tough times.”
Laughter all around.
M1: “You are also not forgetting the special consideration that I will pay into your secret account for your efforts that I so greatly appreciate.”
Lots more laughter as good byes are said.
Possible or pure fiction?